"Don't say that."
"What's wrong? At least no one tried to take off any of my body parts this time." I made hacking motions with the side of my hand. I had a tendency to get juvenile when I was sick.
Claire rolled her eyes, dropping emerald green flu pills into my palm and closing my fingers around them. Then she whisked away the overflowing grocery sack of used tissues beside me.
I took the pills with a swig of ginger ale. I couldn't focus, feeling the drowsy effect taking over, and closed my heavy eyelids.
The tick-tocking of the grandfather clock in the dining room seemed more noticeable. The change was slight at first, so I barely noticed. It grew louder in degrees, until it was the only sound I heard. The sound warped into the sound of thumping on the wall behind me, as rhythmic as the swaying of a metronome, lulling me into sleep.
CHAPTER 25
A WHITE CORRIDOR of doors stretched before me. It was pristine, like a hall of rooms in a fancy hotel. The doors were uniform in shape and size, lining both sides in flawless symmetry. Framed in thin gold, they glowed with inner light.
For an instant, the corridor flashed to a dank twin, with a broken crib and old leaves on a rotting wood floor. Boards stuck up at dangerous angles, and the doors themselves were sagging off their frames, crumbling away.
Then the elegant hallway was back. This time it stayed in place. The other world was an illusion.
As I walked past, each door melted into the wall and disappeared. I ran my hands along both sides, feeling nothing but smoothness beneath my fingertips. It was a sort of numb, detached sensation, like I was just borrowing the body I was in.
It seemed as though I had been wandering forever, but then I reached the end of the corridor. A lone black door awaited me, taller and of a thicker wood than the others. A strange, copper-colored metal symbol, like a bunch of sticks tied together, was set in the center. The symbol looked so familiar, but at the moment I couldn't place it.
I opened the door, and the world shifted. Losing my balance, I toppled onto the ground. I looked up and saw a square-shaped opening above. Dull light poured through. Reaching up through the opening, I grasped the sides and pulled my body up.
I found myself in the caretaker's shed by the Dexter Orphanage. Through the door, I darted across the sprawling lawn, crossing through the gate without looking behind me. Something shapeless and menacing was keeping steady pace a few yards back.
Outside of the gate, I could no longer detect anything following me. Heat made the thick air shimmer, and faint lines of smoke seemed to float in from all directions like jet contrails.
I walked through town aimlessly, not really recognizing where I was. The version of Hell that surrounded me seemed just a little off from what I knew. The world was wrong, angles tilting precipitously. The street was black, undulating like snakeskin, and angry clouds filled the swirling, violet sky.
Girls began to scream, not one but many frightened, hopeless voices in an unsettling chorus. The street burst into flames around me and I was sucked back into my body.
I woke up on the couch, sucking in my breath as I sat up. I was drenched in cold sweat, my shirt sticking to my chest and back. But it felt like my fever had broken. Putting my hand to my forehead, the skin there felt clammy.
"What the hell is this, the haunted couch?" I mumbled to myself.
###
I was miraculously better in time for school, due to my religious use of flu medicine. The sides of my abused nostrils were red from tissues.
Being sick, I had all but forgotten about the fire incident on Friday. But everyone in the commons was talking about it when I walked in on Monday. The most prevalent theory surrounded an antisocial group at school that always wore black and pretended to be anarchists, making a political statement against forced education.
Of course, there were plenty of whispers involving Henry's and my name, too.
Basement access was no longer padlocked, but a line of traffic cones symbolically blocked it off. I wondered if that would actually keep potential snoopers away. Scorch marks shot out from under the door, as if something had been trying to reach out.
When I arrived in the locker room, Theo was waiting expectantly for me.
"Seems like I chose the wrong day to get sick," she said, fiddling with her combination lock. "What happened while I was gone? I keep hearing people talk about a fire."
Before I could open my mouth, Coach Fletcher walked in. "Don't bother changing," she said. "There's going to be an assembly concerning the fire. Leave your stuff here and let's go."
"Do we have to?" groaned Madison, who had already donned her gym shorts and was brushing her hair.
"Yes." Coach marched back out.
Theo and I were still wearing our street clothes, so we walked straight into the hall. I filled her in on the events of last Friday during the short walk to the auditorium. She agreed that Henry sounded suspicious.
"But don't write him off yet," she said. "He obviously cares about you. You should have seen the way he stared at you at the dance. You might as well have been his bride or something. Maybe he just got scared, or worried he would get in trouble. You know how guys are; they can't talk about that stuff."
Lainey and Madison passed by us then, as always wanting to be at the head of the crowd. I waited until they were out of earshot before I spoke again.
"His bride?" I asked, incredulous.
"You know what I mean," Theo said.
"He does seem romantic. That's why I got so crazy about him. Sometimes he's all I think about." I'd never admitted it out loud before, but I knew Theo would understand.
"Well, yeah, if I had a sickly hot guy falling all over himself for me, it would be a huge deal," she agreed.
"What about Alex?" I teased. "He's not bad looking for a meathead."
"Meh," she said, shrugging. She rubbed glitter out of the corner of her eye. "I still have to think about that. He did send me a get-well email. There were kittens. That has to count for something."
The auditorium was packed nearly to capacity when we arrived. It looked like every freshman and sophomore was seated there. I had no idea what to expect. Public execution wasn't out of the question. The faculty members stood along the walls, deep in conversation.
McPherson appeared onstage, lit like a ghoul in the stage lights. Shadows made him appear ancient in front of the ruby red theater curtain.
"Quiet down now," he said without pleasantries, waiting until everyone was silent. "Although most of you were here last Friday, let me give you a refresher. We had a serious incident. Several fires were set on school property, causing minor damage. The staff and I have discussed this matter. We will not rest until whoever responsible is punished."
"Some of you might be wondering who among you is to blame. Our initial investigation has brought us the names of several persons of interest that I will be interviewing." He scanned the crowd menacingly.
"Do you think he's talking about you and Henry?" Theo whispered.
"Of course he is." Although it was impossible, I felt like McPherson was looking directly at me.
The assembly lasted for fifteen minutes, the whole time McPherson going on and on about personal responsibility and the limits of freedom at school being in our best interest. Sure, I thought. When you're on the enforcing end of things.
When the students were finally dismissed, our class filed back out into the hall. I started to follow the herd back towards the gymnasium. But Coach Fletcher stepped in front of me, her boxy form blocking me from going farther.
"Donovan, you need to go to the office," she said. She had gone back to treating me like any other kid, broken nose all but forgotten.
I sighed. Theo smiled sympathetically at me, raising her crossed fingers for emphasis.
Anxiety invaded my body. I had never really been in much trouble before, save for the time I drew with crayons instead of chalk on the sidewalk in elementary school and had to wash i
t off for an hour with a garden hose.
I headed to the front offices and walked into the inner sanctum. Carnation bouquets were wilting on the counter, purple and yellow dye fading. I had been in this room too often lately.
"I was told to come to the office. My name is Ariel Donovan," I told the secretary. I couldn't tell if she recognized me when I wasn't bathed in my own blood. She pointed with her pen back to McPherson's office. This time I was the one in trouble, and I shuffled across the brown carpet to my doom.
I knocked on the door, but no one answered. When I opened it, Henry was already sitting, rather casually, in one of the chairs in front of McPherson's tidy desk. His office was just as organized and sparse as what I'd seen of his house.
"Hi," I said meekly to Henry.
"We meet again," he replied, brushing dirt off of his shoe onto the floor.
"What's going on?" I asked, sitting in the chair next to him. He was still aloof and unreachable, as he had been last week. He simply shrugged.
I wanted desperately to ask him why he was being so evasive. Had I done something to stop him from liking me? After how close it had seemed we had gotten...
"I just want to get this over with," he said. "I have things to do." Fire burned behind his usual energy. He seemed far more pissed off than anxious or worried. He kept shifting in his seat, and his eyes were lit with some unspoken passion.
"This is serious, at least to me," I whispered harshly. "I don't have lawyers for parents." I couldn't understand what had happened to my Henry, the one who was always kind and had a joke for every occasion. The one with the amazingly clever, fast-paced brain that kept me on my toes. The one that I loved, I realized at the worst moment.
The office door opened, and we both turned. McPherson entered with a stack of papers and walked to his desk, setting down the bundle.
He sat down in the wingback chair and rested his elbows on the desktop. Tenting his fingers, he sneered down his nose at us. Henry snorted with derisive laughter, making it known that he thought McPherson was a joke. I looked at him like he was crazy.
Then all the humor washed out of Henry's face. "Is all this really necessary?" he spat.
"I assure you it is, son," McPherson said calmly. His attention suddenly switched to me, and I gulped.
I was scared, not only because I knew I was not McPherson's favorite, but also because of how he demonstrated it when Lainey hurt my nose. Not to mention what I knew about his weird living quarters.
"Why were you still inside the school after the alarm went off?" McPherson interrogated me. "Why didn't you stay with your class, or at least go out one of the other fire exits?"
I paused, mouth open, unsure of what to say. Honesty seemed like the best defense, but with how strange Henry was acting, I didn't want him to think I was placing blame.
"I need an answer," McPherson snapped.
"I went to find Henry," I admitted, hoping I wasn't getting him in a deeper hole than he was digging himself. "He left during class and he didn't come back, so I wanted to make sure that he got out safely."
"Basically, her behavior was stupid, but well-intentioned," Henry said coldly.
I didn't believe I'd heard him right at first. Then anger filled me. Who was he all of a sudden? Was this his evil twin?
"No more stupid than whatever you were involved with," I countered.
"You have no idea what I was doing. Stop pretending like you do," he said, glaring at me and sitting up in his seat.
"What I do know is that I did nothing to you to make you act this way towards me. So why the change?" I challenged, matching his posture.
"Enough bickering," McPherson said, interrupting us. McPherson and Henry just looked at each other blankly. I wondered what I was missing.
"I believe you've already spoken with my father," Henry said. "He'll give you any answers that you need."
McPherson sat still, debating what to do with us.
He scribbled two hall passes. "Go back to class for now." He leaned back in his chair, unattractive face smug. "But don't get too comfortable."
As we left McPherson's lair, Henry trailed behind me. The tension between us made the air unpleasantly thick. When we were alone out in the front hall, I confronted him.
"What is it?" I asked again. Henry wasn't looking at me, his quietly burning eyes trained on a poster of a teacher's apple. "Hello? I asked you a question."
He made me furious, treating me like an idiot in McPherson's office. After all the time we had spent together, I deserved better.
"You're acting like a totally different person," I continued angrily, hoping somehow to crack through his resolve. His lips were pressed tightly, and he bit the bottom one so it disappeared. "What happened to make you be so cruel?"
"I don't always have to explain everything to you," he said, his gaze flickering to me.
Maybe there was something wrong with me that caused the people I cared about most to turn on me. What else could the explanation be? "What would you suggest I do? I can't get in trouble. My parents would ground me for the rest of my life."
"You're not going to get in trouble," he snapped, glowering at me. He leaned in close, so close that I could smell his familiar, woodsy scent. "You will be fine."
"How can you possibly know that?" I asked, searching his wide, furious eyes, filled with some unspoken emotion I couldn't name. He stepped back, still gnawing his lower lip like he was eating his words.
"Just leave me alone from now on." He turned, thrust his hands into his pockets, and started to shuffle away. He didn't turn around as he spoke. "You'll stay out of danger that way."
As I watched him go, I was happy for once to be immune from crying.
###
Ms. Vore lobbed my sketchbook on my desk when I arrived in art. Her eyes met mine, a paler green than Theo's, but just as full of emotion.
"I want you to know that I vouched for you being in class when the fire alarm went off," she said.
"Thank you," I replied genuinely. "I'm really sorry if I caused you any trouble..."
"You should be," she continued, trembling. "The school could have brought disciplinary action against me if anything had happened to you. It's very disappointing." She ran her hand through her hair. "It just proves to me that I shouldn't try to be your friend."
"Please don't think that way," I started, but she just shook her head, and resumed handing out sketchbooks.
"She'll get over it," Theo said after Ms. Vore had walked back up to her desk. "Give her time. She just doesn't want to get reprimanded since she's new here."
I felt really horrible, and the twisted thing was, my thoughtless actions weren't even worth it. Nothing but bad had come from following the pull and running back into school. Maybe Alyssa wasn't so innocent, after all. Maybe she was trying to get me in trouble. After all, she hadn't shown up again to tell me why she'd appeared in the first place. She'd just left me with a host of unnerving questions.
Hugh was reading the newspaper when I arrived home. I stood looking through the sliding glass door at him, trying to figure out what to say first.
"Why didn't you tell me about the fire at your school?" he asked the minute I walked in. Claire had driven me home since she had taken a vacation day, and dropped me off on her way to the store. I wasn't ready for another ambush.
"I thought I did," I said, shutting the door. "It was on Friday, when I was sick. My head was a little wonky. But I need to talk to you about it now."
He folded the paper back up in a messy lump and tossed it on the table.
"I think there's a possibility I might get in trouble," I started. "But I didn't really do anything wrong."
He was starting to look angry, which was exceedingly rare for Hugh. I stood opposite him, twisting the hem of my shirt in my hands into a wrinkled mass. The familiar surroundings of our house suddenly felt like a courtroom, with me presenting my case.
"What happened?" he demanded.
> I explained, but left out the part about Henry. Claire would ban him from the house if she thought he was getting me in trouble, charm or no charm. He's not coming back, the persistent voice in my head insisted. Yet even though he'd been an ass to me, I felt unjustifiably protective. A girl that knew better and did the foolish thing anyway.
"That was incredibly stupid of you," he said once I was done explaining that I'd run back in to find a classmate. "Your job is to take care of yourself. You get all hocked off that your mother and I worry about you, and then you put yourself in danger."
I had no reply for that.
"Jenna's disappearance is affecting your judgment, whether you see it or not."
Yeah, and he didn't know the worst of it. Sneaking out and having possible seizures in abandoned buildings. Seeing dead little girls hanging out at school. Spying on the principal.
"There is still the matter of what happened with the Ford girl," he said, getting up and going for more coffee. "McPherson knows I'll bring it up if he dares press anything with this. So don't worry."
"Are you sure?" I asked. Ever since the disciplinary meeting, I had been apprehensive McPherson would kick me out of school, but I'd tried not to dwell on it. There were plenty of other things to worry about.
"I'm sure," he said. "But that doesn't by any stretch mean that you're off the hook. Now go downstairs and work on your homework, or whatever you can that keeps you the most out of trouble."
Not only was I grounded, I also had to fork over my phone for the week. I begged him not to tell Claire, but he said he couldn't keep secrets from her, because they were in a relationship, and relationships meant honesty. If only I had the same courtesy with Henry.
CHAPTER 26
AFTER WEEKS OF putting off the task, Theo finished the sketches that Hugh wanted her to create for him. I think she would have been done much earlier, but she was a perfectionist. I'd always thought her work seemed so effortless, but she never felt she got things right. I watched in horror as she tore up absolutely beautiful drawings for the sin of tiny flaws.
Hugh only allowed me to go to school and Erasmus. He and Gwen went through Theo's new sketches, both of their heads bent over the portfolio. Their expressions were serious and contemplative. Theo was doing a tour of the gallery again; it was much less nerve-wracking for her than standing and watching her work be critiqued.